Causal theory, God and chance in an age of
quantum theory
Koot van Wyk (DLitt et Phil;
Thd)
The Word of God is the
revelation of God in the Old and New Testaments. It is not just a human product
but a divine-human product meaning that humans wrote it with their infirmities
and slips of all kind, but the Holy Spirit was the Editor that judged that what
they wrote is sufficient, efficient for salvation and gives an accurate state
of affairs of God’s dealing with this world. This is an axiom from which any
scientist should work from. Any denial of that is a listing in John Hurst book
in 1864, The History of Rationalism. It took many forms: pantheism,
deism, atheism, agnosticism and in all of these kinds of points of departure,
the endresult was that they want to think from human’s position about God and
decide how and what He should or should not do for this world. Francis
Schaeffer called it Reason over Faith approach. The second ingredient in a
proper understanding of God’s involvement with this world, is the word dualism.
This world is not just a monistic single power involvement but a dualism
(albeit one a final looser but left alone by the Strong One for a temporal
period). The Rebellion in Heaven History created from Lucifer Satan and that
evil was cast out with a third of his followers out of heaven to this earth. He
was the most beautiful creature ever made. LGBTQH adherents should remember
this when they get excited about the beauty of any man or woman. The most
beautiful human is an evil demon called Satan. Beauty does not equate
necessarily innocence. Roaming this world and aiming to destroy it, Satan is
held back by God’s powers and four angels on the corners of the wind-directions
so that tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, fires, droughts, winds, waves, insects,
pests, plaques cannot eliminate humanity in a short period. Causal
theory must involve God as creator of everything and Satan as origin of
everything evil. Without these two components of causal theory, the
understanding of the cause of things or events cannot be properly described. The
modern narrative about the cause of everything or every event went through swings
in understanding: from God involved in everything (almost pantheistically) to
God starting and then leaving the world to run by itself (Deism or absentee
God) to absolute determinism, to anti-determinism [from God to chance e.g.
Peirce] to relational-causal theory to a-causal theory (due to quantum
theories). “A a-casual theology is not about a God who
exercises no influence. Influencing induces change, and that needs to be
emphasised. So the point is the way God is manifested in events that affect people
profoundly and how he influences them to cope with these. A a-casual theology
has no ready-made blueprints or determinism; its hallmarks are freedom and an
open encounter between God and human beings. One could call it a consequential
theology, a theology of the moment.” (C. Du Toit, Cul-de-sac of
causal thinking: challenge to build a a-casual theology). Cornel du Toit tried to answer the causal
theory by going through history showing how the deterministic theory of God-causes-everything
was the traditional theory and that this mechanistic deterministic theory was
challenged by the Enlightenment philosophers and later rejected like Peirce. The
randomness in science caused them to conclude that God did not order everything
with laws but that consistency only come after random chance actions. This led
to Du Toit taking God out of any action on earth but only make Him emerging or
enter the moments. Said Du Toit: “Thus a a-casual theology
operates with the concept of emergence. ‘The term ‘emergence’ connotes the
image of something coming out of hiding, coming into view for the first time−something
without precedent and perhaps a bit surprising’ (Deacon 2008:121). The
causality at issue is again determined by lower order processes, but not by any
form of predetermined law. ‘These phenomena are often called self-organizing, because their regularities
are not externally imposed but generated by iterative interaction processes,
occurring in the media that comprise them’ (Deacon 2008:123).” In the discussion on the causal nature of God
in events on earth or any event one has to accept the biblical position that
nothing happens without God knowing about it. God cannot work together with
evil to bring evil outcomes. The chain of events that results in destruction is
all by Satan. God can intervene. God can stop Satan. Miracles do happen and God’s
intervention to set aside or use the laws of nature, whether they are random or
orderly, whether they give the impression that they happen by chance, yet
nothing can stop God from finding His own method: a-quantum theory method to creation
ex nihilo. To do miracles. To stop the storm on the waves of Galilee instantly.
He speaks and it is. How that happens and the quantum theory involved in this
is unfortunately an area that no creature can enter into knowing. Describing
our findings of Nano-theory or Quantum theory cannot be superimposed over God
and He then placed in a frame of possibilities and even be so arrogant to
cancel His involvement in events like creation or a literal six day creation,
just because science does not point to such a possibility. Bartholomew asked in 2008: “...if God is the
cause of everything, how can he cause something which, by definition, appears
to have no cause?” (Bartholomew 2008: 218-219). Du Toit mentions radioactivity
saying “in the case of radioactive decay, which is an example of pure chance.
It is wholly unpredictable when the next emission from a radioactive source
will occur.” Du Toit indicated that with Newton was “the advent
of a mechanical, law-governed universe.” The way Du Toit and many other
scholars of Darwin’s evolutionistic systems discusses the history of science or
knowledge or faith and science is to indicate that the canonical view of
science through the Bible of the Middle Ages was a view that caused Copernicus,
Galileo and others to suffer, even to the point of martyrship. They want to
show how the church was wrong and scientist right and that Galileo saw the
earth as round and the sun circling the earth rather than the earth the sun. Then
what they do is to cite Leibnitz or Hume or Rousseau or Voltare or Darwin or
Peirce or Kuhn or any modern scientist to use as a prooftext why the literal
creation is to be rejected, the Bible minimized in matters of science and faith
adjusted to fit modern science. First of all about Galileo: he was not the first
to say that the earth is round. The Greeks did so already in the third and
second centuries before Christ. The earth was not on pillars in the Bible view
as modern scientists are trying to indicate, Moses who wrote Job in 1460 BCE in
Midian already knew about the earth hanging on nothing [in the sky]. Secondly, David Hume and Jean-Jacques Rousseau
were too intimate friends when they left France for England and the comments
about each other were studied carefully by scholars. In 1762 Rousseau fled to
Paris and was then escorted by Hume to England. Odd friends. When Hume died,
his friend James Boswell visited him “On Sunday, July 7, 1776, Boswell
visited the bedside of his dying friend Hume” wrote Amy Cools in 2017. About
his death and Boswell reaction about viewing him, Amy Cools wrote: “Boswell, ‘too late for church’ anyway, stopped by to
see if Hume, notorious for his religious skepticism, ‘persisted in disbelieving
a future state even when he had death before his eyes.’ Boswell, habitual
bacchanalist in wine and women, was nevertheless very religious and had a
superstitious terror of hell. He was dismayed and shocked to find that his old
friend did not only persist in his disbelief but was at ease, even happy, and
showed no discernable fear of his impending annihilation. Boswell was left
‘disturbed… for some time.’” Keep in mind, this is the celebrated source for
many scientists to use as example why the Bible should be shifted aside and
give reason and true science a chance. Hume is cited and his ideas. About the
trouble Boswell brought between these two friends, she reported: “The
unraveling situation was not helped when Hume’s friend Boswell, charged with
escorting Rousseau’s beloved mistress Thérèse Le Vasseur to join him in
England, had an affair with her along the way. Rousseau believed that Hume had
helped orchestrate this betrayal as well. Aware of Boswell’s notoriously
insatiable sexual appetite, Hume certainly showed very poor judgment in
trusting Boswell with this task. Before long, Hume and
Rousseau became bitter enemies.” About the conscience Rousseau wrote: ““Conscience! Conscience! Divine
instinct, immortal voice from heaven; sure guide for a creature ignorant and
finite indeed; yet intelligent and free; infallible judge of good and evil,
making man like to God! In these consists the excellence of man’s nature and
the morality of his actions;…I find nothing in myself … but the sad privilege
of wandering from one error to another, by the help of an unbridled
understanding and a reason which knows no principle.” (Rousseau p. 692) Scholars are citing the friends of Hume like
Voltaire, Adam Smith as if they are of higher rank than the Word of God. Their lifestyles
were notorious for A to Z. Ontology or the way a person is living influences
the epistemology or the way a person is thinking and that ultimately influence
a person’s methodology and finally the end-product. About Hume Tourneux wrote in 1877: “And yet, in his philosophical writings M. Hume is as
bold as any philosopher of France. What is even more amusing is that all the
beautiful women fought over him, and the portly Scottish philosopher amused
himself in their company. David Hume is an excellent man; he is serene by
nature, his intelligence is subtle, and though speaking little what he says is
pointed. But he is heavy; he has neither warmth nor grace nor a pleasing wit,
nor anything that would attract those charming little machines we call beautiful
women.” The king of Prussia wrote to Rousseau saying: “You have made yourself
often talked about because of eccentricities inappropriate to a truly great
man. Show your enemies that you can at times have common sense: that will anger
them without doing you any wrong.” M. Walpole was present [in 1766] when Voltaire received the writing of
Rousseau about him Voltaire: “He was present in Ferney the day M. de Voltaire
received the “Lettres de la Montagne,” and read in it the statement regarding
him. His gaze enflamed and his eyes burned with fury, his body trembled and he
shouted with a terrifying voice: “Oh the wretch! The monster! I must knock him
out. Yes, I'll have him knocked out in the mountains between the knees of his
governess.” “Calm down,” our man said. “I know that Rousseau has proposed a
visit to your home and that he will soon be coming to Ferney.” “Let him come,”
answered M. de Voltaire. “But how will you receive him?” “How will I receive
him? I'll give him supper, I'll put him in my bed, and I'll say to him: “You
had a good supper. This bed is the best in the house. Do me the pleasure of
accepting them both and being happy in my home.” (cited from Tourneaux 1877). Suard wrote about the 1766 fight between Hume and Rousseau and said about
Rousseau: “It’s quite acceptable that one be mad, but I insist that one always
be an honest man, even in accesses of madness. What is more, M. Rousseau is the
sole friend I have lost without having to regret his death. He has quarreled with
almost all his former friends, nearly all of whom we had in common, and
dismissed them one after the other.” (cited from Tourneaux 1877). Suard the
publisher of Rousseau’s work said: “I also believe he has things to reproach
himself for in regard to several of his former friends, but I don’t count
myself in their number.” When Hume brought Rousseau over to England in 1766 the summary of this
event is given by David Edmond and John Eidinow: “However, Rousseau was now
dependent on Hume for survival in a country where he knew no one and could not
speak the language. He had left behind, in Switzerland, Thérèse Le Vasseur, the
former scullery maid who was his steadfast companion, acting as his gouvernante,
or housekeeper, for over thirty years. Rousseau was immensely fond of her,
needing her by his side and longing for her when they were separated. Sultan,
at least, was with him. Rousseau's emotions about Sultan were sufficiently
intense to amaze onlookers.” After arriving on the harbor, the authors had this
to say about the two: “The boat docked at Dover at midday on January 11.
Setting foot on English soil, Rousseau leaped on Hume's neck, embraced him, not
uttering a word, and covered Hume's face with kisses and tears. Just after the
travelers arrived in London, Hume wrote to his brother, "I think I could
live with [Rousseau] all my life in mutual friendship and esteem."
Blithely, the letter continued: "I believe that one great source of our
concord is, that neither he nor I are disputatious." There is also
somewhere a letter I saw in which Rousseau describe the “beauty of the face of
Hume”. It appears to be a case of LGBTQH gone sour here? This is the sources
that scholars of our modern times wish to cite for their “progressive” thinking
in science, and in the subject of God and Cause. John Hurst in his 1864 book on the History of Rationalism did us the
favor of going into the lives of many of these socalled great lights to
indicate their notoriousness, their subversive lifestyles, their rejection of
God. Charles Darwin should not be left out of the picture here since
scientists feel that emergence and evolution are distant brothers and they can
rely on Darwin for light. There is an article by a modern professor emeritus in
Psycho-pathology who studied Darwin and
his change to Evolution from Creation. It happened because his daughter was
terminally ill in a sanitorium of a spiritualist who had spiritualistic books
in the library there in the hospital and Darwin sitting at the bedside of his
dying daughter, started to blame God for the suffering. Reading the demon-books
his mind twisted to almost “punish” God to let his daughter die. A great
article. A must for all. Darwin is not what he seems to most. About the article I summarized before online in a blog at http://www.egw.org the following on Darwin: “In a
very good research by Dennis Klass, a professor emeritus in Psychology, he
demonstrated that bereavement over his daughter Annie’s death caused Darwin to
denounce God as Creator. While taking care of her in a sanitorium, he read the
book by F. Newman on how to become an agnostic from evangelical fundamentalism.
The seeds were sown in his doubting heart and the death of his daughter Annie
made him reject God and become public about it. The Origin of Species was born.
Rather than just describing dr. Klasses’ essay, it is better to give it in full.
The sanitorium of James Gully was where Annie was taken to. Gully was tapped
into spiritualism, mesmerism and the calling up of mediums. “Like many of his educated
contemporaries both in the UK, and in the USA Gully showed an interest in
several popular movements of the day, such as women's suffrage, mesmerism and diagnostic clairvoyance. In later life he came to
believe in spiritualism, being friend and protector to
the medium Daniel
Dunglas Home was present at some of the manifestations of ‘Katie
King’ with Sir
William Crookes and was President of the British Spiritualist Association in 1874.” (source: Wikipaedia). The transformation of F. Newman to an agnostic is not the kind of book
that Darwin would have gotten from dr. John Harvey Kellogg at the Battle Creek
Sanitorium and his historical course would have been different.” Keep in mind when Darwin heard John Colenso, the missionary of Kwazulu
Natal spoke after his visit to A. Kuenen in Holland, about the higher-critical
ideas surrounding the Bible and doubts that Moses wrote it, Darwin spoke very
positively about Colenso. “Birds of a feather ….” The Trojan Horse of
Liberalism is just pushed from generation to generation to pick up more
adherents and our modern days had them included on a simple subject like “God
and Causation”. They wish to cut God out of the picture. And if they want to
bring him in, like Du Toit is scrambling to rely on predestination according to
the Marxist definition of Otto Weber, it wants to show that God emerge as an “afterthought”
and not as a planner of events or its happenings. Du Toit then want to make God
the sufferer with us on events here and then to choose whether He wants to be
involved or not. The best we science can do is to admit that Fibunacci and his spirals in
nature is the “Fingerprints” of the almighty. That is why pantheism originated
with the Indians as back in pre-Christian times, also through Buddhism since
the 3rd century BC. There is something in nature out there that
shows an order mathematically precise and that is not to be ignored. The heaven
proclaim the glory of God … says the Psalmist. God does not need quantum-theory or Newton Mechanistic determinism laws
or any scholar’s view of causality to “cause events” or move something on earth
or change circumstances. Already in Elijah’s time he was saying that God is not
in the Wind. But God can be if He choose to be so. He can determine. He does’nt
have to determine everything. He can emerge and He does’nt have to in order for
something to happen. He just spoke and it was. He creates ex nihilo but also
make things from what already exists like the bone of Adam to make Eve. God can choose randomness to make order or He can take shortcuts that
even overrides the randomness and makes it quicker to happen. Chance does not
bind God’s hands or intentions. He is not frustrated by the laws of nature or
the absence thereof. He is not blind to tragedies and suffering. Satan is the
R&D of this. Unfortunately, modern scientists sits with their cigarette in the left
hand and a beer in the right over the Word of God and struggle to see God’s
Cause of things in a proper way. Their minds darkened by their lifestyle.
Epistemology locked and hunting for favorite similar birds of the same feather,
they cite Hume, Voltaire, Leibniz, Darwin, Hegel, even Marx and Weber and the
list just goes on to see who climbs out of the Trojan Horse of Liberalism,
rejecting a literal six-day Creation week, rejecting the literal words of the
Word of God, rejecting miracles, rejecting Christ’s virgin birth, rejecting the
Trinity, rejecting the Sabbath as the seventh-day in the week chosen by God to
celebrate His creating actions as the first Cause for this earth.
Bibliography
Bartholomew, D. J., (2008). God,
chance and purpose, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Cools, A., (12.18.2017). Hume and Rousseau: Friends Turned Bitter
Enemies. Posted on December 20, 2017. Downloaded from internet on the 5th of August 2018 at http://brewminate.com/hume-and-rousseau-friends-turned-bitter- enemies/ Cranston, M., (1997). The Solitary Self: Jean-Jacques Rousseau in Exile
and Adversity. Chicago. De Exupéry, A., (1991), The little
prince, Mammoth, London. Deacon, Terrence, W., (2008). Emergence: the hole at the wheel’s hub, in
Clayton, Philip & Davies, Paul (eds)There-emergence
of emergence. The emergentist hypothesis from science to religion, 111-150.
Oxford University Press. Oxford: Dingemans, G. D. J.,
2001, De stem van de roepende, Kok,
Kampen. Du Toit,
C. W., (2006). Tout est bien? Natural and supernatural causes of evil. Perspectives
from Hume’s treatise and Voltaire’s Candide, Scriptura,
93/3, 315-329. Du Toit, C. W., (2007). Limitations of the concept 'law of nature' as a
source in science, philosophy, theology and law, in Drees, Willem B., Meisinger,
Hubert &Smedes, Taede A., Humanity,
the world and God: understandings and actions (Studies in Science and Theology, Volume 11,
(2007-2008), 175-190, ESSSAT Lund.) Du Toit, C. W. Cul-de-sac of causal thinking:
challenge to build a a-casual theology. Downloaded on 5th
of August 2018 from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262441500_The_cul-de-sac_of_causal_thinking_a_challenge_to_build_a_non-causal_theology Du Toit, C. W., (2007b). Seasons
in theology. Inroads of postmodernism, reference and representation, Unisa Press, Pretoria. Edmond, D. and John Eidinow, (April
10, 2007). Two
Great Thinkers at war in the Age of Enlightenment: Rousseau's Dog. Ecco. Eigen, M.
& Winkler, R., (1983). Laws of the game. How the principles of nature govern
chance, Penguin, Hammersworth. Frankenberry, N. K., (2008). The
faith of scientists in their own words, Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford. Gregersen, N. H., (2008). Emergence: what is at stake for religious
reflection?, in Clayton, Philip & Davies, Paul (eds.), The
re-emergence of emergence. The emergentist hypothesis from science to religion, 279-302,
Oxford University Press, Oxford. Hacking, I., (1990). The taming of
chance, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Hurst, J.,
(1864). History of Rationalism. Downloaded
on 5th of August 2018 at https://archive.org/details/historyofrationa027452mbp Klass, D., (May
17, 2013). “The Long-lasting Effects of Parental Bereavement: The Case of
Charles Darwin”
Dennis Klass, Ph.D Truro, Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Kulstad, M. A., (1993). Causation and pre-established harmony, in
Nadler, S (Ed), Causation in early modern philosophy, 93-118, Pennsylvania State University Press, Pennsylvania. Lewis, M., (1997). Altering fate: why the past does not predict
the future, Guilford
Press, New York. Mossner, E. C., (1954, 1980). The Life of David Hume. Oxford. Nadler, S., (1993). The occasionalism of Louis de la Forge, in Nadler, S
(ed.),Causation in early modern philosophy,57-74, Pennsylvania State University Press,
Pennsylvania. Pearson, K., (2010).The scientific law, in Turner, S (ed.) Causality, vol. I, 201-226, Sage, Los
Angeles, London, New Delhi. Rutherford, Donald, (1993). Natures, laws and miracles, in Nadler, S
(ed.),Causation in early modern philosophy, 135-158. Pennsylvania
State University Press, Pennsylvania. Seabright, Paul (2004). The company of strangers: a natural history of economic life.
Princeton University Press, Princeton. Frères, 1877; Translated: for marxists.org by Mitchell Abidor;
CopyLeft: Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org
2011.Downloaded from the internet on 5th of August 2018 at https://www.marxists.org/history/france/grimm/hume-rousseau.htm Van der Kooi, C., (2005). As in a mirror: John Calvin and Karl Barth on knowing God: a diptych. Brill,
Leiden. Watson, R. A., (1993). Malebranche, models, and causation, in Nadler, S (ed.), Causation in early modern philosophy, 75-92, Pennsylvania State University Press,
Pennsylvania. Weber, O., (1972). Grundlagen der
dogmatik, vol. 1, Neukirchener, Göttingen. Angela Scholar's translation of Rousseau's autobiography, The
Confessions (Oxford Classics, 2000). Zaretsky, R., and Scott, J. T., (February 23, 2010). The Philosophers'
Quarrel: Rousseau, Hume, and the Limits of Human Understanding
Tourneux, M., (1877). “Correspondance littéraire, philosophique et critique,”
Vol VI. Paris, Garnier